In Search of Russian Literature's Charming Rotten Scoundrels

Join us at The Museum of Russian Art for a presentation by Dr. Anna Barker (University of Iowa):

2024 marks the 200th anniversary of the death of Lord Byron, the creator of the alienated, cynical, and absolutely irresistible characters who to this day bear his name, Byronic.

Emerging out of the initial thrill of the French Revolution of 1789 and the eventual disillusionment with the direction of the revolutionary project and the meteoric rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Byronic hero captured the Zeitgeist of the age and spoke to the alienation of an entire generation of European young men who became weary of unhindered idealism which invariably devolved into fratricidal slaughter.
In Alexander Pushkin’s 1825-1832 novel in verse Eugene Onegin, the titular character, who is described as a “Moscovite in Harold's cloak,” is an avid reader of Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and tries to emulate the Byronic ideal in every possible way, to the bewilderment of his friends and foes. Needless to say, Pushkin wrote the novel under the watchful gaze of a Byron portrait above his desk - and a statue of Napoleon on the mantelpiece - the two quintessential sources of poetic inspiration of the 19th century!
Professor Barker's talk will focus on the influence of Lord Byron on 19th century Russian literature and the reverberations of Byronic trends in Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, Mikhail Lermontov’s The Hero of Our Time, and Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons.

Thursday, May 16 | Doors open at 6:00 PM, Presentation begins at 7:00 PM

TICKETS: $12 General Admission | $10 TMORA Members | $5 Students

Seating is located in the main gallery and is general admission.

TMORA Shop will be open prior to and following the presentation. Free parking is available across the street from TMORA in the Mayflower Church parking lot.

At the University of Iowa, Professor Anna Barker teaches at the Russian Program (Introduction to Russian Culture, Russian Literature in Translation, and Tolstoy and Dostoevsky) and at the Tippie School of Business (Hey Barbie, I like your Style - and Substance: The Archetypal Genius of a Blockbuster). Her monthly column focusing on the intersection of history, literature and art, Anna’s Thinking Cap, appears in the Iowa City Press-Citizen. She writers daily literary commentary on Substack. Professor Barker is pictured here, along with her inseparable companion Watson, at the Tepelene Castle in Albania where Byron started writing Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

5500 Stevens Ave, 5500 Stevens Avenue, Minneapolis, United States